


where the sun goes to die

by threesipsmore



Category: One Piece
Genre: M/M, why is the title depressing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-04
Updated: 2016-06-04
Packaged: 2018-07-12 02:43:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7081714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threesipsmore/pseuds/threesipsmore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They hit the Deadened Sea around nighttime, a place where the morning knows no sun. In the utter darkness of that sea their ship loses power. Sanji comes to know the crew through the intricacies of their faces, from a sightless touch here and there, a brush of fingers over bolts and antlers and crooked jaws.</p>
            </blockquote>





	where the sun goes to die

They hit the Deadened Sea around nighttime, a place where the morning knows no sun. In the utter darkness of that sea their ship loses power.

Sanji pulls at Zoro’s cheeks, brow twitching in irritation. "Hey, shit-for-brains, watch where you're walking."

Zoro never gets a chance to retort, a great tremble to the woodwork of the ship as something decidedly darker than their surroundings slithers on by, massive in bulk and width and form. Nami and Usopp clap a hand over Luffy's obnoxiously loud mouth, the crew watching as that creature ducked under the water once more.

"What was that," Usopp whispers harshly, voice cracking.

"Quiet," comes Robin’s voice, unusually stern, “I will say this once and only once so pay attention. This is a place of utter nighttime. The darkness here will eat both the stars and the lamps. The ship will continue on with the breeze, and eventually we will leave this area in relative peace," she breathes, "so long as we don't make any unnecessary noise. They say the Deadened Sea is the back door to Davey Jones’ locker."

Something shifts to the left of them, something different but large all the same, and Robin doesn't say anything more after that.

None of them do.

They can only see the outlines of their hands at the very most, and the odd angle of the ship here and there. Brook almost teeters over the ship railing twice. They'd thought, at first, to sit in place for the duration of this unpleasantness. It doesn't last very long. Robin writes on their arms with a finger in passing: _three days._

Sanji gets to know the crew based on the texture and warmth of their skin, of a slight grace of his hand to their cheek (he lingers with Nami and Robin, knowing full well they can't see his gleefully wide grin).

Luffy is smooth but hard and ridged in scars he’d never noticed before.

Chopper gets trampled on more than once, and so Robin plants some spare arms on him to push away the lumbering feet of the crew.

Brook is far too cold to the touch, Franky disturbingly laced in bolts under the skin.

And then there was Zoro, Zoro with his slightly crooked jaw and warm skin.

Sanji’s in the kitchen, realizing then the futility of their fridge without power. He’d need to make something minimalistic, something with no chopping or dicing or slicing.

A form behind him, a shift in weight and it must be one of the guys, so he turns about and reaches out. Warm skin, a bit too smooth for a man.

Zoro.

Was he here for the alcohol? Zoro in turn brushes fingers long Sanji’s chin, though the cook knew it wasn’t needed. Who else would be in here, fretting over the cutlery?

Zoro’s fingers linger, and Sanji, so suddenly and thoroughly, wants to see his expression then.

He can’t exactly yell at him, can’t cause any ruckus with his kicks and so he just swats that hand away, grabbing it irately so as to help the damned idiot towards the cabinet. Didn’t need him making a mess of things.

The interesting thing about the Deadened Sea was that it gave Sanji ample opportunity to notice the peculiar intricacies of his crew mates. Chopper had a few moles under that fur of his, just below the pits of the arms.

The crease above Nami’s lids were uneven, discovered only by the unfortunate event that Sanji had misjudged her height on the stairs.

Usopp’s nose was longer than he’d thought.

He’s hesitant to try Zoro, but he trips over him one evening (he thinks it’s evening) and catches himself with a muffled, albeit floundering, stretch of hands and legs. He rounds on the sleeping idiot only to feel a steady breath on his face.

He’s still sleeping. Amazing.

Sanji, hesitantly, trails his fingers up a neck (misjudged again) before settling at the balled joints of his jaw, noticing once more the slight crookedness of them.

His top lip is dryer than the bottom, his nose sharp and high. The hair on his brow his thin and sudden in its arch as he smooths a thumb over it. There’s the buzz of adrenaline in his fingertips, making them all fuzzy and warm.

He was. . .

He was kinda handsome, if based on the symmetry of his face alone. Ears pressed to the skull instead of Luffy’s elephant flaps that twitched from the side of his head.

The apple of his throat is large, the flesh under his jaw soft and warm—

Large fingers find the scruff of Sanji’s chin, and he scrambles away.

* * *

 

So maybe he shouldn’t be feeling up his nakama in the dark. Just two more days, right? Or was it one?

The real problem is Luffy. Luffy who can’t sit still. Luffy who insists on fighting anything that may or may not be stronger than him. Luffy with the screams— _god_ Luffy with his damned _screaming_ all the time.

Someone’s behind him— someone’s always behind him, that’s how the darkness worked. This one is larger but weighted regularly— not Franky, no, this had the mosshead all over it. Three taps means he’s hungry, though Luffy doesn’t ever seem to understand that all it ever _takes_ is three and not twenty insistent jabs to the ribs.

He hates cooking in the dark, and he hates cooking such raw and potentially bland meals. But the crew still needed to eat. He didn’t want to greet with the sun with eight skeletons— just the one would do.

Zoro wanders away and Sanji tears at the lettuce with his hands, peppering it in seeds. The bastard better appreciate the effort.

And then there’s the screams. It’s the second time since they’d entered these waters.

Other ships haven’t clued in like their dear Robin, weren’t as well read or educated. The maws of those giant sea monsters crunch at the wayward ship. He waits for the loud, monstrous groaning of a sinking vessel. 

They’re stupid, probably deserved it.

He tries to remember that the next day, tries to keep in mind that Luffy is kinda stupid too, but that it doesn’t mean he deserves to be eaten.

Twenty-four hours later and Luffy drops into the ocean, toppling over the railing by faulty mistake, and Nami can only scream.

All hell breaks loose, waves lapping at their ship with a force that knocks Sanji into Franky, who holds him steady with a _bro._

No point keeping quiet now.

Sanji heats up his leg for some light, yellow eyes gleaming down at them from one the mast. Usopp sends a few firebirds up there, like a giant _fuck you_ flare. The sunflower stars that follow after reveal three more grotesque sea kings.

Luffy’s laughing once the swordsman fishes him out, and that’s how the day (they all assume) starts.

Somewhere along the way Zoro wants a good kick and so Sanji preps his leg and gives the mosshead a lift, shooting him up towards the darkness of an absent sky. He catches the glint of gold earrings and the flash of teeth as he goes.

Chopper screams and Sanji is there.

It was their job, right, him and Luffy and Zoro? It was their job to be the buffer between the crew and the rest of the world.

Somewhere along the way he knocks into Zoro once more, and he knows then that he doesn’t need to look back.

And with that, comes the next twenty-four hours of mindless slaughter.

* * *

 

The sun is happy, the damn bastard, up there promising them days upon days of love, as if it hadn’t abounded them just prior.

Sanji notices the ridges where Franky’s bolts are now, and the larger clumps of fur under Chopper’s arms.

And the way Zoro’s jaw cocks funnily when he smirks.

“Finally,” Zoro groans, “some warm grub. Been tired of your shitty rabbit food, cook.”

Sanji’s teeth grind against his smoke, the thunk of his knife against the cutting board a blessing to the ears.

“Oh shove off.”

“Wasn’t all bad though,” Zoro sighs into his drink with a nonchalance that alerts Sanji, his hands faltering, “the things we had to give up in that darkness.”

He’s leaning back in his chair with an absent expression, peering out the open door as Luffy screeches from the yard.

Sanji drops a dumpling before him on a paper plate, glaring. “Try it.”

Zoro doesn’t need to be told twice, balancing it between his hands and blowing at it before it manages to find his mouth.

“’s good.”

Not that Sanji cares, cause he doesn’t.

* * *

 

The New World is a funny place.

The people here are gutsy. Gutsy enough to try and corner him in the bar. _Roronoa Zoro,_ they always say, _320,000,000 berry bounty._ As if he didn’t know his own worth.

“What’s this?”

The shopkeep wipes at his hand, gaze hidden behind foggy glasses. “Permuade fruit.”

The hell is that. Zoro picks at it, sniffing a little before dropping a few coins. “I’ll take this one then.”

He finds the cook later in the kitchen, and he drops the spiky fruit onto the table with a _thud_. Sanji turns around, frown pulled tight as he stares at the offending object. “What the hell is that?”

“Perm—” Zoro tries, “perm fruit.”

“Perm. . . perm fruit,” Sanji stares at him, “you trying to feed me a hairy devil fruit or something?”

Zoro grunts and demands alcohol.

"What is this," Sanji mutters, "a courier service? Am I supposed to tip you now?”

Nonetheless he hands over a rather old bottle of hard liquor and Zoro saunters off.

The next day Zoro remembers that spiky little fruit, and he asks the cook what had happened to it. The cook, partially up through the hatch in the floor of the crow’s nest, plate in hand, pauses.

"I broke it open, used the syrup for shaved ice— for the ladies.”

Zoro just grunts into his bottle, ducking it back for a good amount. The cook is still staring at him though, and he leaves the evening's meal there by the hatch in silence before disappearing.  

The next island finds a rather funny colored pear-shaped thing on the chef's table, with little beads of green lacing it. Once again Sanji looks down at the singular fruit with a curious gaze.

"Back for your daily rations," he jokes a little, squinting his eyes at Zoro all funny like.

"Nah, I already got my booze, love cook.”

Zoro leaves him like that, standing there all puzzled with a knife in one hand and a potato in the other.

He doesn't expect the cook later, however, crouching down beside him in the yard during the extreme heat of midday. Luffy hollers from the swing, preoccupied by the grapes Usopp is shooting his way.

He's got a tray to him, a chilled cloth draped over it.

"A bit early for snacks," Zoro comments, cracking his eye open to take a look. Sanji snorts, clearly amused.

"I'm surprised you noticed. Anyway, here, shitty moss head.”

Zoro blinks away the nap he'd been taking. Chopper is off somewhere in the distance screeching happily, enjoying the sprinkler Franky had set up. 

"Well," the cook growls, seeming to grow agitated, "you gonna take it or not?”

Zoro accepts the wooden platter, peeling back the cloth to find a soft green substance shaved off into curls, smelling sweetly of honeydew and spice.

"I salted it a little," Sanji nods at it, balancing on the tips of his toes still, arms draped across his knees as he takes a drag of his smoke, "was a bitch to get into, and those little gummy pearls on the outside were useless. Tasted like tar.”

Though it's not a lot, the amount startles the swordsman. It looked to be the entire fruit. "This is my portion?”

Sanji puffs at his smoke, pushing to a stand, grumbling something about _pity_ and _poor growing child._

Zoro shoves some of it into his mouth, speaking around the food. "Who the hell're you pitying cook?”

Sanji wrinkles his nose at the display. "Well, you got me that fruit, right? And then I didn't even let you try it. You might be a bastard, but I'm still a gentleman. So— so this one’s yours, you got a problem with that?”

Zoro wonders if it's the sun, but he thinks he sees a splotch of red on that face. He pauses, cheeks full as he considers the cook’s retreating back.

* * *

 

"I'm sorry," Zoro growls, eyes narrowed, " _how_ much?”

The merchant holds up his hands in a nonthreatening manner. "Sorry buddy, this stuff is expensive to harvest, and we gotta import the ice to keep it fresh— water don’t come cheap around these parts.”

It's some sort of banana, maybe, or— or something that looks like a banana, shit, he didn’t know. It's nothing he's ever seen before, and so he rubs at his nose in thought.

He comes back later with Nami, and she demands vehemently (for a service fee, of course) that the salesman deduct 50% because this is an outrage and she will not tolerate his shady swindling of poor, helpless, green-haired children.

The cook finds the cooler on the floor near the sink come morning, rubbing the sleep from his eyes before flipping it open curiously.

Zoro’s under the tree of the deck, dozing off with his back to the ground and his legs propped up on the swing.

Sanji pokes at his head in the evening, jabbing at him until he snaps and wakes up with an angry holler and a few choice threats. The cook shoves the plate before him. It's something yellow and soft, like a marshmallow maybe. He has no qualms with popping into his mouth, noticing the bowl next to it.

“Wazzat?"

"Since it's not too sweet I thought I'd make a puree from it.”

Zoro ignores the spoon and tries to drink it like he would sake, and Sanji swats at him for being such a moron, grumbling about this and that.

"Not bad," Zoro says through it all, and that stops Sanji, who stares at him a little with an utter blankness to his gaze. Zoro wonders what's behind that gaze.

* * *

 

"Oh, what's that," Nami peers over the railing of the upper deck, her shadow cooling Zoro’s skin.

Zoro takes another happy bite. It'd been a fish this time, one that looked like the rainbow with long fins and wide, bulbous eyes, a horrendous jaw locked in death just under. Sanji had gotten a little excited by the damned thing, flipping through that aquatic book of his to try and identify it.

"Dunno," Zoro says through another bite. He’d bought it from a skinny farmer just past the city.

"Is it snack time already? I thought he said he'd be making a pumpkin mash.”

“Dunno."

He can feel Nami's frown. "Zoro," she says slowly, "did he make that just for you?”

Zoro doesn't answer that time, plucking another raw piece and dropping it into his mouth.

"Sure is pretty," she says then, her feet tapping away until he's certain she's not there anymore.

He stops his chewing and glances down. The pattern is still feasible, a dollop of sauce at the center, sprinkled in the leftover fish eggs from the night before. He scoops it up and watches the clouds.

* * *

 

He doesn't get anything at the next island. He'd been stuck on ship watch and his allotted break was consumed by Luffy's need for supervision and a sudden bouncy desire for fishing. So they return with a fresh catch of nothing interesting.

He wakes up rather early the next day, earlier than his mind likes as he stumbles into doors and walls, a heavy mist to the ship, gray clouds rolling in from the north. He’s scratching at his stomach when he notices the blue-striped shirt of the cook.

His walk is slow in a way that tells Zoro he’d just gotten up himself.

His back disappears through the kitchen door.

When Zoro pushes in he finds that back still there, the cook staring at the empty table.

“Asleep?” Zoro pushes the back of his head.

Sanji waves him off, too tired to retort and there’s the awful clatter of dishes as Zoro wanders around for a clean glass, Sanji shoving his arms into a soaking pot from the night before.

Sanji doesn’t seek him out that day, flounders about the girls and helps Chopper unpack his supplies. But he’s got a thoughtful quiet to him the rest of the time.

Zoro finds that fish book on the counter where the dirty dishes had been, old and loved with ruined pages here and there.

* * *

 

“Fish, huh?”

The man scratches at his head. “We mostly catch our servings here ourselves, very self-sufficient. We got everything else up there in the market, from rice to milk to plums. If you want some fish, though, you’re welcome to rent a rod.”

He does, for a fee that makes him glower.

He sits there on the docks, the ship not far off as the setting colors bath it in pink. He can almost hear them, Luffy and Chopper, tactfully preoccupied with the sprinklers while Nami and Robin shop around with the cook.

Zoro bites into a plum, sitting there still.

* * *

 

“Is that a grouper?”

Zoro holds it up by the line, smelling of salt and death and the sweat from his own body. It’s nighttime now, his neck aching from hours of sitting on that stupid dock, trying to catch this stupid fish.

“I dunno, you want it?”

Sanji takes the line, though Zoro thinks he looks less than impressed. Nothing like that other fish.

“I guess. Pretty lean, isn’t it? Two servings at best. Where’d you get this anyway,” Sanji asks, flopping it onto the counter and picking through the knives. “Didn’t see anyone selling fish.”

“I caught it.”

Sanji stops, turning his head just slightly. “You? Where, on the docks?”

Zoro flaps his shirt a bit, the humidity of it sticking to him. “Yeah.”

“Is that,” Sanji starts, “is that where you’ve been all day?”

Zoro shrugs, opting for water and ice.

Sanji’s quiet, tells him he’ll prepare it tonight, if there’s any left he’ll get it tomorrow.

* * *

 

"Another exclusive meal?" Nami crouches down beside him, peering at the fish.

"Guess so.”

She tilts her head a bit. "Wait, we didn't buy any fish.”

"Caught it.”

She's got her eyes on him, probing and unmoving. "You caught it, huh? What for?”

What for?

He licks his fingers free from the breaded flakes and butter. What for?

If he knew the answer, would he tell her? The cook had been touchy in that dead sea and this— this was how he in turn was touchy. This was how Zoro touched people.

Nami gives him this small smile that doesn't belong on such a sharp face.

"He used the good stuff," she finally says when she stands, hand to her eyes to block the sun.

"That cream on the side there? We just got it, pretty expensive. He was gonna make us lattes with it, but the canister was so small it must've only been enough for two servings, just like that fish.”

* * *

 

He returns the plate quietly, not yet ready to go once Sanji dumps it in the soapy sink.

"Well," the irritable blonde huffs, "what do you want?”

"It was good." How surprisingly helpless those words sound.

Just touching wasn't enough.

"It was good.”

Sanji grunts.

"It was good.”

Sanji makes another affirmative noise.

“It-"

"Damnit Zoro I heard you—”

He must see something in Zoro's face then, because he stops there, his annoyance dying out, though still his cheeks remained red— a growing red it would seem, a great big, blooming red.

“Zoro,” Sanji wets his lips, “why do you keep bringing me stuff?”

Again with that question.

He remembers the way Sanji’s fingers felt skimming across his cheekbones, the way they followed along his jaw, his thumbs to his brow carefully.

Zoro takes the love cook’s chin into his own and softly, confidently, presses his lips against that stern mouth.

* * *

 

Sanji can’t look him in the eye in the morning, slides his portion across the table as the clamor of breakfast fills the dining space. “Ooh,” Nami teases, “an exclusive again?”

It’s none of that syrupy pancake stuff, it’s some sort of porridge with bits of fruit sinking into, and Nami might be teasing him about falling out of favor but he knows, with a glance thrown towards the cook, knows that there’s something to this.

* * *

 

Zoro shrugs off the weights, the evening air cool against his skin. Sometimes he preferred the deck over the nest, liked breathing in a little bit of fresh air with a hint of the cook’s food.

Sanji sets dinner on the crate. “From now on it’s oats, yogurt, and fruit for breakfast,” Sanji says quickly, “no complaining, okay? It’s pre-workout food.”

Zoro unstraps the weights from his ankles, rubbing the scars there before he stretches back up.

He’s in front of the cook, his shoulders just a bit wider as he gives him a small kiss, Sanji’s skin burning.

The cook wanders away, and in the morning Zoro finds his proportion doubled.

Usopp catches them once. Zoro had dropped a month’s allowance on a fish the size of his palm.  He knows it from Sanji’s book, knows it from the dog-eared page worn down by years of love and fawning.

Sanji looks at him expectantly, that fish papered up in his hands, that happy pink still in his cheeks. And so Zoro leans in, fingers to his chin as he kisses him softly. It’s never more than a tap of the lips, a gentle press of flesh. Zoro doesn't ask for any more than this, because right now he doesn’t need any more.

Usopp chokes on his own spit in the kitchen doorway, staggering away with white death in his eyes.

* * *

 

There’s a few galleons out past the starboard prow, painted in navy colors and soon Zoro finds his boots soaked in their blood, flecks of it in the cook’s hair.

What did they think they were doing, these marines, with only a single vice admiral on their side? His captain was Strawhat Luffy, one third of the nightmare aboard their ship.

The other third is over there kicking sculls in left and right, smoke clamped between his teeth, the butt of it fluttering about as he twirled and jumped.

Zoro kisses him then too, in front of the dying marines, in front of the living ones, in front of the world.

The cook’s happy sigh is enough for him.

 

 

 

(“He’s like a cat,” Sanji murmurs to an unwilling Usopp, “like a cat bringing me dead animals as a present.”

Usopp grumbles.

“Is it affection?”

Usopp takes a swig of candy liquor.

“Ha! It’s pretty messed up if it is.”

Usopp waits.

“Back then, on that sea that had killed the sun, I touched him. Now that the sun is back he finds other dead things to give me.”

Usopp grunts.

“Till death do us part then.”)

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr: threesipsmore.tumblr.com


End file.
